When a membership is approaching its end date, the last thing you want is for a member to drift away simply because no one followed up. The Membership Expiry Reminder workflow sends a timely heads-up before expiry, prompts your team to make contact, and then follows up automatically if the member still hasn't renewed. You set it up once and ClubRight handles the rest.
Before you start
đ Note: This article covers setting up the Membership Expiry Reminder workflow specifically. For a general introduction to Smart Workflows, including how to navigate to them and how templates work, see Smart Workflows: getting started with automation.
How to set up the Membership Expiry Reminder workflow
Click the burger menu in the top left-hand corner.
Click Communication.
On the left-hand side under Navigate, click Smart Workflows.
Click New workflow in the top right.
In the template library, scroll to the Retention section and select Membership Expiry Reminder.
You will see the full workflow structure. The trigger is set to Membership expires. By default, the workflow starts automatically when a member's membership reaches its end date. To start it a set number of days before, for example 21 days before expiry, see "How do I send the reminder before the membership ends?" below.
Naming your workflow
On the right-hand side of the workflow editor, you can update the Name and add an optional Description to help you identify the workflow on your Smart Workflows page.
What the workflow does
The Membership Expiry Reminder template includes six steps:
Send message: Your membership is ending soon: an initial reminder sent to the member when the workflow triggers.
Wait 3 days: a pause before the next action.
Await approval: the workflow waits for your sign-off before continuing. Members waiting at this step are listed under Communication > Smart Workflows > Pending approvals. Click Approve to continue the workflow for that member, Skip to take them out of the workflow, or Always approve to approve them and stop this step asking for approval in future.
Create task: Follow up on expiring membership: a follow-up task is created and assigned to a staff member.
Wait 7 days: a further pause before the final message.
Send message: We'd love to have you back: a follow-up message to encourage the member to renew.
Once the final step is complete, the workflow ends.
Customising the workflow
Editing a message
To edit a message step, hover over it and click the pencil icon. This opens the Send Message panel where you can:
Choose when the message sends: Immediately (as soon as the workflow reaches this step) or After a delay (add a wait before the message goes out).
Update the Subject and Message body to suit your club.
Personalise the content using fields such as First name, Membership number, and Title, or additional fields via the More dropdown.
Choose the Channel: Smart (ClubRight automatically picks the best channel for each member), Email, SMS, or Push.
Set the Consent type required: Email Marketing or SMS Marketing.
Editing the task
To edit the Create Task step, hover over it and click the pencil icon. You can update the task description, use the Assign to dropdown to assign the task to a specific staff member or to Member's assigned staff (which automatically routes the task to whoever is assigned to that member in ClubRight), and set the number of Days to complete the task. The task will appear in the assigned staff member's task list in ClubRight when that step is reached.
Deleting a step
To remove a step from the workflow, hover over it and click the delete icon (bin) next to the pencil. This permanently removes the step from the workflow.
How do I send the reminder before the membership ends?
To start the workflow before a membership ends, click the Membership expires trigger at the top of the workflow and enter a number in Trigger days before. For example, enter 21 to start the workflow 21 days before the membership expiry date, so the first renewal reminder goes out three weeks before renewal.
Go to Communication > Smart Workflows and open your renewal reminder workflow.
If the workflow is active, click Pause to edit.
Click the Membership expires trigger at the top of the workflow. The Choose a trigger panel opens.
Scroll down to Trigger days before (optional) and enter the number of days, for example 21.
Click Done.
Click Save, or Activate to make the workflow live again.
Leave Trigger days before blank to start the workflow on the day the membership ends. Any Wait steps count on from when the workflow starts, so with 21 days before, a Wait 3 days step runs 18 days before the end date.
The number of days isn't shown on the trigger or on the Smart Workflows page. To check or change it, click the trigger to open the panel again.
In the same panel, Which membership plans? lets you choose which plans the workflow runs for. Leave every plan unticked to run it for all plans.
đĄ Tip: If you used to pre-set timings for renewal reminders in Message Automation, Smart Workflows have replaced it. The timing is now set with Trigger days before on the trigger.
Adjusting the timing
To change the wait time between steps, hover over a Wait step and click the pencil icon. Update the duration to suit your renewal follow-up schedule.
Re-enrollment
By default, a member will only go through this workflow once. If you want members to be able to re-enter the workflow, for example if their membership expires again in a future year, enable Allow members to re-enter this workflow in the panel on the right-hand side.
Activating the workflow
When you are happy with the workflow, click Save to keep it as a draft, or Activate in the top right to make it live.
đĄ Helpful tip: Consider enabling re-enrollment for this workflow if your club has members on fixed-term plans that renew annually. That way the reminder sequence runs each time a membership expires, without you needing to do anything.